http://www.flickr.com/photos/salomonsen/6424624257/

A beautiful picture by Ole C. Salomonsen.

A reminder to celebrate the heavenly host, however you understand it.

Maybe, just maybe, thousands of years ago, shepherds on a hillside beheld a sight like this and found renewed hope.

Maybe, just maybe, those shepherds felt, for just a few moments, that though the were lowly citizens of their time, they were a beautiful and perfect part of one universe.

I watched At the Concert Hall  on Bravo! Canada a couple of months ago. The guest was Johnny Reid. When asked about the song "A Place Called Love," Reid said that he wrote the song around the time that his grandmother passed away and his daughter was born. He asked himself, "Where did my grandmother go? Where did my daughter come from?"

The answer he came up with was a place called love.

"Hasten slowly and you will soon reach your destination."   —Milarepa

Remembrance Day is about more than the people we know, or our ancestors. It is about every man or woman who served, every loss, and every lesson learned. I cannot know every soldier, every conflict or every horror, but my poppy does; it represents all of it. The tiny red flower is heavy with the weight of all it knows. I wear it in hopes that it won't have to get any heavier.

My Poppy Laden

© 2011 Arlene Somerton Smith

Tho' whisper-light, the flower over my heart weighs heavy,
laden with its symbolism.

When I do a good deed, I feel great.I didn't realize that watching another person do a good deed could make me feel just as good—maybe better.

This week, during a hasty trip to a shopping mall, I walked past a man carrying a woman's purse. The man, dressed in full military uniform, sought out the mall security guards. He handed the purse to them and said, "Something to keep you busy." The man had found the purse left behind in the food court and decided to do the right thing.

"Wherever light is, no matter how weak, these flowers will find it. And that's such an admirable thing. And such a lesson in life." —"Chris" in Calendar Girls, 2003

We have just had the most amazing Thanksgiving weekend. Sun. Warmth. More sun.

So easy to feel positive and thankful on a warm sunny day in October. But what about the rest of the time?

My husband and I arrived at a quaint German town.  We strolled in the sun along a picturesque main street steeped in hundreds of years of European culture . We passed flower beds brimming with brilliant red and yellow flowers nodding their heads in the summer sun. When we entered the tourist bureau, the staff greeted us warmly, but with reserve. They knew why we were there. They handed us a brochure that read, "Welcome to Dachau."

The cycle of loss and rebirth touches every life, and we think about it especially at Easter, with its dominant theme of loss and rebirth (however you choose to interpret it). For me, Easter is a time to remember that out of every heartbreaking tragedy comes light.

Or more precisely, in a time of heartbreaking tragedy, it's important to look for the light, maybe even create it.